Fox News Flash top entertainment headlines for April 5
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Harvey Weinstein has appealed his sex crime conviction from his 2020 New York trial, according to docs obtained by Fox News.
The disgraced movie producer was found guilty in February 2020 of rape and a criminal sexual act. The now 69-year-old was sentenced to 23 years in prison in March 2020.
Weinstein's lawyers filed a 166-page appeal on Monday claiming Manhattan Supreme Court Justice James Burke "woefully neglected" to ensure a fair trial.
The appeal also claims that the judge "shouldn’t have permitted testimony from four women whose sexual allegations hadn’t resulted in criminal charges."
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Weinstein's legal team said the testimony "merely depicted Weinstein as loathsome" and didn't have anything to do with the charges he was facing.
Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison after being convicted of rape and committing a criminal sex act. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
The team also called Weinstein's sentencing unfair and "a death sentence."
"With a year behind us and emotions subsided, the transcript of the case confirms what we always believed: that Mr. Weinstein did not receive a fair trial," said Arthur Aidala, one of Mr. Weinstein’s attorneys from the firm Aidala, Bertuna & Kamins, P.C. "We have the utmost confidence that the Appellate Division will correct these mistakes and send this case back before a different judge."
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Manhattan DA's office spokesman Danny Frost told Fox News on Monday, "We will respond in our brief to the court."
Besides claiming the judge was biased, the appeal docs also claimed that Juror No. 11 Amanda Brainerd was as well.
Weinstein also faces rape and other sexual assault charges in California. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
While she was a juror, Brainerd was writing a book due out in summer 2020 called the "Age of Consent," which chronicled "predatory male teachers" and "sexual relationships with older men and the power adults hold over them."
The appeal docs stated, "Clearly, the fact that the prospective juror had written a book that involves sexual relationships between women and ‘predatory older men’ – the very accusation against Mr. Weinstein – is something that should have been disclosed, even absent a direct question."
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Weinstein also faces rape, forcible oral copulation and other charges in California after five women said they were attacked during events in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills from 2004 to 2013.
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